


republic

by chubsonthemoon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Brazil, Gen, Introspection, kags is there in spirit, op had a crisis at 3 am and fever wrote this, way too many allegory of the cave references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chubsonthemoon/pseuds/chubsonthemoon
Summary: This, too, is still volleyball.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	republic

**Author's Note:**

> I was going through my notebook and found?? this?? i'm so sorry in advance.
> 
> also, plato's republic has unironically caused me a great deal of emotional pain in my life. hq, as always, is a healing balm for my overdramatic ass.

He misses him. Everyday. A physical thing, one that lives in his chest. It spurns on, keeps him going. He’ll weave through the winding side streets on his bike, see the bright lights of a stadium all too close for comfort behind the glass. He does not stop. He cannot.

Because he’s going to meet him there, one day. And he needs to earn it.

So he pedals on; the ache subsides. It fades with the salty-sweet air of the sea, and he keeps moving, because if he stops, he knows—

He’ll be left behind for good.

***

The kitchen is comforting. Here, he makes himself food. Here, every morning and evening (lunch is always packed away for elsewhere), he says _thank you for the meal._ He takes care of himself, now. He can’t repeat what happened. The carnal nature of his existence—the kind that needs rest and care and warmth—cannot be ignored.

So he loves his tiny kitchen, so much that he hates it, just a little. It is his place to make good on his promise to himself and to Kageyama Tobio, and it is, thus, a reminder.

This is still volleyball.

***

The beach becomes his battleground. Miles and miles of sand, a curve that goes on forever into the blue unknown.

He thinks about how every grain used to be a mountain, how it sinks beneath his feet. Both forgiving and unforgiving.

But he does not need forgiveness. Instead, he plants his feet and flies. That is his confession—that the sand, at the end of the day, is merely a step forward.

Doesn’t mean he can’t love it, though. Because is that not the point? To love the journey?

***

But in the mornings, it is the ocean. He sits before it, legs crossed, and thinks of nothing. Mind clear, he goes still, stiller. Becomes, listens. Rising sun on his face. A shout further down. A runner behind, traffic further back.

_Eyes closed, Shouyou._

This is the winding of the spring, the buildup of potential energy. He has so much left to do, he can’t afford to not take time now, for this one thing.

He breathes, and breathes, and breathes. His eyes remain closed, but he faces the horizon.

Another.

***

This, too, is still volleyball.

***

He makes new friends. He practices verb conjugations with Pedro and finds street names faster. He gets a raise and buys a proper webcam so he can sing at three in the morning on Natsu’s fourteenth birthday. He runs into the Grand King and plays volleyball with him on the beach every evening until he leaves, and then keeps playing volleyball on the beach after he leaves. He rides past the electronics store that no longer has Kageyama Tobio in its windows, and keeps riding. He misses home. He meditates on the beach, develops a schedule that works. He keeps going.

It gets easier. The ache becomes more manageable. Settles into his bones and fills his veins with fire; he grows to meet the flame, keeps it well fed. One day, it will roar again, but for now, the embers simmer low.

This, too, is still volleyball. It is all volleyball, and yet. And yet somehow it is not. To love volleyball, he loves everything else. Is it all lesser, then?

He finishes grilling the last of his chicken and sits at his tiny table in his tinier kitchen. _Thank you for the meal._

No, he decides. No, it is not lesser just because it is connected to something greater. The Little Giant was small compared to those around him, but he was by no means, in any way, lesser.

***

This is still volleyball.

***

We move through space, break through skin to something else, something we can grasp for only an instant. Something bright and fleeting and intangible. We stumble around, only the impressions of others’ voices, shadows on the wall of the cave, to guide our newborn selves.

Sometimes the shadow is only five foot four. Sometimes it flies. Sometimes it glows through the window of a storefront in summer, or winter, or spring. Sometimes the rider in front of the store stops, pauses. Sometimes the rider keeps going.

Those who are very brave, or perhaps very stupid, try to find the source of the flame. The light that makes the shadows dance.

***

Hinata Shouyou stumbles around in the dark, grasping for anything and everything that resembles a flicker. When he finds it—and he will, he _does_ —he devours it, swallows it whole. He is greedy like that, and yet he does not care, for the next ball beckons, and the next and the next and the next.

He loves with every fiber of his being, every piece of light he reaches, and he jumps. He flies. No wax wings to melt if you are the sun itself.

***

This is still volleyball.

***

(What he does not know is this: that Kageyama Tobio will never leave him behind, not really. While Hinata Shouyou adds more kindling for the shadow-maker’s belly, Kageyama Tobio, although he does not look back, will wait for him, and keep the home fires burning bright).

***

_What will you become tomorrow?_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! <333
> 
> my [twitter](https://twitter.com/chubsthehamster) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/chubsonthemoon).


End file.
